2023-05-10 08:00:00
GLAM make electro-experimental drama-pop. And once you find out what that sounds like, GLAM might make a completely different sound once more. The formula of panta rhei (“everything flows”) is found in many elements fluid band in an excellent way.
Das Album „THE COLOR, THE DARK” will be released on 05/12/2023 on teacup records. Dominik Beyer speaks in the course of this GLORIA AMESBAUER and the guitarist MARKUS W. SCHNEIDER in the mica interview regarding genres, songwriting and to what extent the utopia of almost random musical freedom influences the working process.
How do you describe your music?
Gloria Amesbauer: I find genre names difficult. The press text says electro-experimental drama-pop.
Is that your own description?
Gloria Amesbauer: That was my attempt to summarize everything. You might also say avant-garde pop.
Which elements are avant-garde and which are more pop?
Gloria Amesbauer: On stage we improvise a lot with sounds. Song forms are broken. There’s no song that has the typical flow of a pop song, is there?
Markus W Schneider: We really don’t have the classic verse-verse-bridge-chorus scheme.
Then the melodies can be assigned to popular music?
Gloria Amesbauer: Yes. I use the weapons of pop. The pop element, viewed harmoniously or formally, is something we tease with. We are dissolving something that comes from a completely different direction. Sometimes it moves along the edge and then suddenly snows in. Kitsch has so much power. That’s what I mean when I talk regarding the weapons of pop. But we only use this in a targeted manner. I actually listen to a lot of music that others might consider cheesy. I only use it to break other elements. Many techniques get their own moment. For example the trinity. By not using it in an inflationary way in the set, I hope it has a meaning all of its own.
What is pop music for you?
Markus W Schneider: In our case, the songs are also a means of transport for understanding. So that it remains accessible to everyone – even without previous training. Something non-elitist. Feelings that can also be understood from the reality of one’s own life.
How are the songs created?
Gloria Amesbauer: If I had an answer for that, I wouldn’t always have to struggle with the composition. Sometimes there are moments when something pushes and wants to get out – and it’s done in ten minutes. Most of the time, a text is already created in combination with a mood for the music. “Bookshelf”, for example, was ready within a few minutes. After the first demo I didn’t change much until we recorded it.
Markus W Schneider: We didn’t have the feeling that we wanted to change anything. You might tell from the first demo that this is a special song.
Gloria Amesbauer: And then there are other things that you sit on forever and then try to trick your head. The songs are so different because they are created so differently. Some come, to put it cornily, from deep within. And then there are songs that you get emotionally attached to. You don’t want to give them up and keep changing them.
Are there rules that you follow when composing subdues?
Gloria Amesbauer: No snare. [schmunzelt]
Markus W Schneider: I believe that every song sets the rules for itself. Because the songs also work very differently. For example, when I think of “embryo”. We’ve been playing it live for a long time. There’s a melody there. A basic framework. We always improvise the song differently live, but there is always a certain mood or feeling.
“Even if a song worked well, the next one has to be something completely different.”
Gloria Amesbauer: The more you play it together, the more similar it becomes.
Markus W Schneider: “Still”, on the other hand, is strictly composed.
Gloria Amesbauer: It’s also an exciting question as to whether we obey rules when playing together.
I mean more in writing. Just because you mentioned earlier that the composition process is always a difficult birth from song to song. It’s easy to get lost in a myriad of options these days. Even more so if you leave all possibilities of sound generation, playing practices and genres open. Not that I think you lose yourselves. Maybe I’m speaking too much from personal experience. Sometimes it’s easier to limit yourself. If only emotion is the sole director, a song can also end up in the roller coaster ride of the same. Rules, or rather structure, often make the process easier.
Markus W Schneider: Maybe that is our utopia, that everything is allowed to exist.
Gloria Amesbauer: That’s exactly the point. But that’s what characterizes the composition or the project, that I don’t want to make it easy for myself with one rule. On the other hand, of course, it’s exhausting. Something in me always wants to reinvent the wheel. So I don’t want to make any rules for myself. Even if a song worked well, the next one has to be something completely different.
That’s sympathetic.
Gloria Amesbauer: But I’m trying to get rid of that little by little. Stories can also be told. Thematically there is already a red thread. There are lyrics on the album that were already on the first EP. Red threads flash through. But I don’t think regarding that in advance. Nothing is conceptualized with us.
Sometimes I would like to just do techno because I wish people would party at our concerts. Then once more cinematic power ballads.
If there’s one rule I make for myself, it’s not to judge my music rationally. ‘Cause there are too many moments where I hate them. The moments in which I celebrate them legitimize the continuation of the work. So my compositional rule is not to always take the momentary assessment seriously. As banal as it sounds: listen to your gut feeling. Doesn’t mean that everything always has to feel good and cool. There are lines of text that I feel uncomfortable speaking on stage. But some things have to be. I can’t tell you why that is.
“Nothing is planned for us.”
What for example?
Gloria Amesbauer: On “Still” the stanza, if you want to call it that, is in German. Then I sing: “Cold rain drips on my skin.“
What’s uncomfortable regarding it?
Gloria Amesbauer: This is so personal. The whole job also includes turning the inside out. Bla bla bla. The songs are so close to me. And things regarding me are uncomfortable too. But I try to accept them anyway. “Still” in particular is regarding severe depression. Some facets of me are not hip. A lot of people might think that it’s embarrassing when this funny German text comes up. Do you know what I mean?
Maybe you worry too much regarding what other people think?
Gloria Amesbauer: It certainly is. But then I try to work once morest it once more. Hence the rule that I don’t believe everything.
Is every concert very different in terms of the sounds?
Markus W Schneider: Not very different. It’s regarding bringing things back to life. But with means that work and fit to keep it alive. Not just because you want to take your liberty.
That’s what the question was meant to be. You force, so to speak, the fellow musicians on stage to listen by surprising them with small variations.
Gloria Amesbauer: That doesn’t happen that often. That’s how it is at the moment. It doesn’t surprise me though. There are goosebump moments.
“I have an idea, but it can be surpassed if the other two take their ideas and make even more of them.”
Are there hierarchical structures in the cooperation between you?
Gloria Amesbauer: There is already a certain hierarchy. I would like to say that they don’t exist. But I write the music. But it doesn’t feel strictly hierarchical. When I started the band I didn’t have instrumentation in mind, but people I wanted to work with. As long as yourself Aras Levni Seyhan and Markus W Schneider can take their liberties, it becomes what I desire. I have an idea, but it can be surpassed if the other two take their ideas and make even more of them.
Markus W Schneider: That’s also important to me, not just being a serving musician. This isn’t a band where I can let my practiced riffs and licks out.
Gloria Amesbauer: We really love each other too. I think that’s important.
Markus W Schneider: You don’t do it for the money anyway. [lacht]
What music currently inspires you?
Gloria Amesbauer: “Multilove” out Unknown Mortal Orchestra tickled my brain last. Just like the song “Jericho” by Iniko. This is an RnB singer who is regarding TikTok has become known. There’s an acappella version on there TikTok. Wow!
Experimental music too?
Gloria Amesbauer: Basically every single concert by Isabella Forciniti inspires me a lot. I just saw them live once more recently. I have to grin all the time and go off at the same time.
Apropos TikTok. How do you feel regarding social media?
Gloria Amesbauer: I hate it. TikTok I don’t have and don’t want to. Instagram is a good tool. But definitely the hard part of the job. The private one is funny. Memes and reels save my day sometimes. It’s that easy.
Thank you for the interview
Dominik Beyer
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Glam Live:
02.06. RKH, Vienna
09.06. Bertholdsaal, Weyer
10.06. Old building yard, Ottensheim
20.06. Cafe Wolf, Graz
07/15 Milla Club, Munich (solo, w/ Rosa Anschütz)
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Links:
Glam
Glam (bandcamp)
Glam (instagram)
Glam (facebook)
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#reinvent #wheel #GLAM #Mica #interview #mica
